Mad Hatter's World
by Aiko Isari
Summary: (Giratina episode) When Giratina pulled Cyrus into its own world, it had so many ideas. So many thoughts. All the wrath they could not invoke on their fellows, they could finally use here. They did not expect to see a strange blond woman enter their domain, full of thoughts of mercy and freedom.
1. Chapter 1

1 – The Invocation

"Come."

For a moment, they thought the voice was calling for them. They had hoped for a moment that someone was thinking of them.

But, no, in the end, it was not ever for them. It was for the _good children,_ or the squabbling children, as they liked to think of those two.

It was always them, even though every time there tended to be an incident, it was the two of them. Dialga and Palkia caused so much trouble and yet Creator looked upon them fondly. No, they corrected in their mind. Somewhat fondly. They were locked up as well. Someone needed chains and toys to reach them, the fools. They could still go where they wished, which was an envious ability to be sure. However, they were under lock and key by three spirits, three who left Giratina themselves alone. They gave Giratina no quarrel.

Until now.

They heard the small ones scream. The sprites let out cries of resonating agony, long and loud enough to destroy any eardrums that they might have had and tug at their heart.

Well, if they weren't dead.

Giratina, as a matter of fact, was very dead. Dual types with the word ghost in their typing tended to be. In fact, they were more of a wraith. But even those specifics were irrelevant. They had been thought about thousands of times in wandering this endless reversed hellscape.

"Come."

The voice was ice hit with a hammer. It was also weighted in self-importance, in that human-fuelled clarity of belief in their own dragged down ideas. These could certainly not be faulted, but they were wrong.

"Create a new galaxy!" Like drumbeats, poorly paced and stuttering for their worth. "A new world!"

Voices were behind this man, but they were petty. They were so heavy and wrong in their tiny, feeble endearments, in that word master.

But then, like all mortals do, they don't understand. You can not create a world with time and space alone. You cannot create a world with concepts that already exist. All you can do is doom what is born and made. And Giratina, infinite and wise and bitter, find fault in that.

The dragon flapped their wings, each sharp point glowing red. Another flap and a thudding of hearts. Giratina threw back their head and howled, the darkness of his home, his universe coming at his call and swelling into power. It swirled into being into a massive cluster and then, without hesitation, he threw it up and shattered a portion of the sky. The sweet smell of wind, real wind brushed into golden skeletal nostrils.

They were quite lucky their tear ducts had long since shriveled into uselessness.

Unfortunately, their sight of the old world, of _home_ , was ugly, marred by viscous purple clouds and unnatural lightning. Also the screaming. That was starting to get horribly distracting. It needed to stop at some point, though that was likely to happen only when the two idiots were brought to heel.

That thought settled things in their mind. They threw themselves upward. They wanted to find the voice. They wanted to see their face, to make them know, understand… true fear. Whatever that would be for them.

As the hole grew closer, dread washed into their intestinal remains. What would it be like to touch that world again, even for this brief moment? Would their scales rot off? Would their eyes finally go well and truly out like candles? Or would they be able to experience the beauty of their former home at last?

The thought almost gave their heart the ability to beat. So without hesitation now, they shoved their head out. They met resistance, as predicted. The world still rejected them. It was almost comforting to know the old human saying was still applicable. It hurt, crashing through reality. It crashed over the remaining flesh and scales and their form rotted grey and dripping from one dimension to the other as he rose up. Only the eyes remained unchanged, visible, cat-red and seeing clear even in this murky air.

Murky is the wrong word. The air was charred, slick with the soot and ash of another stupid human making another stupid mistake. But this time, they would get to wreak retribution on someone who truly deserved it.

They don't have to look very hard to find their mark either. The eyes of a dying finneon give it away. The self-imposed disgust within a present era. In the past, they would have called it rebellion. Giratina knew better: it's called elitism.

So, with that thought, they lunged forward.

* * *

 _ **A/N:** _Hello! So while I'm backlogging Yellow Adoption, please enjoy this! It's supposed to be fairly quick and will help me have some fun getting into Giratina's head. He's one of those legends I really like, but don't write. Whoops!

Challenges: PFC Ficlet Competition and Novella Masterclass (Specials) 8.


	2. Chapter 2

2 – The Listener

It was a difficult process, a kidnapping. What really makes it difficult is not hurting them. They have no hands, as the humans do, and after grabbing them, have to settle for the floating the human after them into this realm. Their limbs were bound with telekinesis. Not that this mattered, the human had passed out the second Giratina had gotten hold of them. How had they managed to torture the little pixies beyond recognition in that state? It was a mystery they would have to unwrap.

Perhaps it was because this human was stupid, but they were fairly compliant in all aspects. There was no need for food in this universe, it came from within, and all the water sources were toxic in any respect. The creature likely wouldn't die. Not immediately. When they did, they would become a ghost and haunt this place. Perhaps then it would pay its respects to the living, as it so obviously _had not._

Or they should kill it now. Was a thought. But they wanted to decipher it first. What was their world like now? Mere glimpses every century or so was hardly enough to tell.

It didn't wake from consciousness immediately, which gave them a chance to analyze, calculate. The thing, aberration rather, slept with breaths that almost seemed calculated. Could a human forcibly calculate their breathing, their power? Giratina wondered. Mortal lives were so finite as it was. Perhaps it was subconscious. Perhaps it was desperation for order of some kind. For the moment, it was all irrelevant, until they awoke.

They waited an indeterminable amount of time. They heard the soft cries around their head, pleading and gentle and pained.

The Children of the Lake. The new guardians of those errant fools they called siblings. Poor creatures.

"Do you want justice?" they asked the three. The cries went quiet. "I can offer you justice. I can offer you his head, eventually."

One cry. A second reply. _"That is unnecessary."_

Oh? Not vengeful pixies? How strange. "The gods have changed over time, it seems."

Another cry. _"We are tired. We have tried to break him of these notions. We have failed. That is our own folly."_

"Does he not deserve to pay for such a folly?"

 _"Is the afterlife not punishment enough?"_

The afterlife? _Their_ domain? How laughable. If Giratina truly owned the dead, the seas would be full of them to bursting, calling for vengeance and haunting their dreams. The dead were endlessly sleeping after all. Surely their dreams would have crashed and met and they would have had a connection. "You make it sound as though it is crowded in here."

 _"You may not have noticed, is all. You have enough to do."_

Oh, did they? "I beg your pardon?"

There was no response, but the human made a sound like a groan. It was instantly controlled by teeth, as if it couldn't bear to express itself in such a manner.

Giratina swiveled to a halt, turning like a young seviper in the grass to look upon its prey rather than devour it. Not that the prey reacted with much. An open then closed mouth greeted them. Then the human moved to something like a sitting position in rough limb pushes. It was jerky, like a puppet. Did this human know how to walk? Were they defunct in some manner? Was that something you wondered about?

The human looked up at him with those dead finneon eyes and the urge to simply devour it grew back in intensity, all over their body. They almost were opening their jaws.

"You are the other."

Their mouth opened wider, beyond offense. The statement sounded just so typical, like they had heard it a thousand times before now. There was nothing like being compared to your siblings in such a casual way.

"You are the one scrubbed out from the stories."

Giratina closed their maw slightly. They inclined their head. "I am."

"You are stopping me from completing my ambition." It was not a question. The human was not very good at asking questions.

"It isn't much of an ambition." Just another petty, feeble excuse to end the world. To be fair, the human had gotten quite close, unlike most. But it was only temporary. The universe would have made things right somehow, even if it wasn't through Giratina themselves.

"Destroying the spirit of the world is not an ambition?" The human pauses as if in disbelief. "hanging the world for the better is not a grand cause."

Giratina exhales despite having no lungs. "You are not the first. You are not the last. Get used to disappointment."


	3. Chapter 3

3 – The Impasse

Giratina wasn't certain if the human could hear, seeing as they had never responded after that. Perhaps there were barriers in place for the mind.

There was a lot of silence. Giratina, if they could consume food, briefly considered eating it out of a show of good humor. Not that the human would appreciate it anyway, but the thought was there regardless. For the first little while they had tried to ignore him. This didn't take much, as the human barely made any sound. They drank from the upside-down waterfall and ate the few hardy blades of grass that grew by the water but that was all. Giratina got the sense that if the human could have simply laid down and died, they would do so.

If the potential answer didn't make Giratina feel as though they were likely going to choke on their own dead larynx if they heard it, then they would ask if that was the case. Besides, they were, admittedly, a tad bit peeved at the human for their disrespectful responses. Did most humans like to be compared to their siblings? Resentfully, Giratina doubted this one would like anything except for destruction.

It was fine, however. They were going to starve to death and decay in here, so there was no reason to be too intent on it. however, one day the human spoke of his own accord. And for the moment it was the only sound in the world. It rather was like listening to pieces of land grate on each other to erupt like a volcano.

"The existence of spirit is pointless."

The statement was so far out of left field, to use a human phrase, that it threw the dead dragon clear out of their thoughts. They had no use for it. And it was also very odd to say for someone who was speaking to the dead. The human didn't think very much about its surroundings, did it?

"Spirit," it continued, droning as if speaking to a class full of children. "Emotion, willpower, none of them are necessary here, are they?" It looked about once more. "The stagnancy here is available without it, yes?"

It took Giratina moment to realize that it was talking about them. Which alone was surprising. The human didn't talk. Or at least not much. It made sounds certainly. It read, or what Giratina believed was reading anyway. Though how it had managed to bring reading materials along was anybody's guess. Electricity did work here, Giratina had discovered after a poor, unfortunate magneton had fallen in here.

It hadn't lasted long, simply put. There were still pieces floating around the area like a satellite in space.

Giratina knew of satellites. Humans made odd creations.

Still, the human spoke and only Giratina was there to listen. They tried not to, but they had been so used to silence. The sound was actually, dare they say, appreciated?

Then, the words actually processed, and Giratina realized it was talking to them. Could it even understand the language of pokemon? Perhaps with telepathy.

Did they even have to answer?

"If spirit did not exist, then there would not be ghosts," Giratina finally said. "Ghost pokemon exist because of the spirit, as the dead become something beyond a physical resource." Then, they realized that wasn't what was being asked. "This world likely could exist without my presence but that is only because the creator wills it. But without me, it would not be necessary as it was made for me."

"But the world persists and would persist, as would all worlds," the human says, its voice quiet and holding some emotion hostage, some feeling he found himself too good to acknowledge.

"They would not be created without spirit in some form." Giratina said with a shrug. "Spirit performs creativity. It would not think to be created in its natural state. If you had no spirit you would not maintain yourself."

"But does it need to be?" The human almost sounded insistent now.

Giratina did not answer out loud. They weren't sure how to do so. Their words were not supposed to be a comfort to this human who had attacked younglings to enslave his brethren. They were not supposed to concern themselves with its well being. It would die soon enough.

Besides, how could it respond to something which it disagreed with so heavily?

So they did not speak and turned to examine the many mirrors that wittingly or perhaps unwittingly, led to their world. Giratina was certain the world was expanding and connecting. Perhaps the sentence would be lightened. That would be nice. The human could be left to blindly hunt their way out of their own will and eventually be eaten by the void.

Yes, that sounded good.


	4. Chapter 4

4 – The Rainbow

Silence reigned again. It was a better ruler than Giratina themselves. Not that Giratina was much interested. They had left the human behind to rest for an indeterminate amount of time. If it was a permanent respite that would be well earned and well deserved.

However, that rest did not last long.

One of the portals started to ripple. There were so many that they had no clue which and honestly, they didn't want to search. Whatever it was would fall soon enough, so there was no need to hurry. They rather hoped that whoever it was would end up falling into the void rather than being fortunate enough to touch a landmass. Two 'alien' lifeforms in this prison was two too many.

It was decided. They would kill this one and be done with it.

They swam through space to find the portal. The current resident, whose punishment they still hadn't decided on, didn't look up. It wasn't the first time this had happened. They didn't look up to much. They didn't react to anything without prompting or the sound being very right close to its ears. Then they jumped and cowered without a single change of expression.

Dialga and Palkia would have gotten a kick out of it and tortured the human for their own amusement. At least, they would have the last time Giratina had gotten a glimpse of them.

Reaching the fluctuating portal, they reached out and saw… a second human.

This human however was not alone. There was a small, black and gold creature at her feet, sniffing nervously at the fabric of her clothes. It barely reached one of her knees. It must have existed after Giratina was sealed, or it was a pokemon that they had not run into in their rampages. And they had had many.

Giratina paused in their rush forward and watched, hovering in the shadows of the clouds. They watched and waited. If this was like the other human, then it would be all too easy to send a ball of shadows forward and watch it fly backwards like they were hit with a magnet. So they watched, ever patient. Ever silent. The human is female, they thought, basing it on snippets of conversation from mirror after mirror with many pronouns paraded over and over each other.

The woman looked around in wonder.

That alone almost made them consider going to speak with her. Wonder? Who looked upon such a dead place with wonder and not despair or disgust? Honestly, it was quite laughable.

Then her eyes reached where they floated, far up in the sky. She smiled, smiled brightly like they were just looking at another monster, and not the lowest, not the imprisoned and the prison guard.

"Oh," she said, eyes full of wonder as she looked up at them. It was almost like the first time Giratina had met the lake guardians. They had been so full of youth and wonder for the five minutes they'd been around them before being locked away. "You're the third, the one spoken of in legends. I thought it was you."

Her tone is reverent and honestly, that's disturbing. They have never been revered before, never been admired or regarded with anything more than distaste. This is just… it somehow feels unsanitary.

"You were trying to stop him, weren't you?" she continues, oblivious to Giratina's own discomfort. "Cyrus, I mean. He was trying to destroy the world, you know? It would have spread to here if you hadn't done anything. I'm grateful to you." She bowed and again came that creepy-crawly feeling in their gut.

So the human's name was Cyrus. Not too important, but calling it the human when it was going to suffer and die was rather impersonal. Which they supposed was _the point._ It didn't exactly make it more tolerable.

Giratina opened their mouth, then closed it with a metallic snap. "I… did not do it for you.""

The woman's smile only widened and Giratina swore it was going to give off something _positive_ and _delightful._ Ugh. How foul.

"I didn't think you did, or would," she admitted.

"Aren't you supposed to be afraid?" they couldn't help but say. This was a much more normal human, much more expressive, alive, existing. They didn't want this one here, they threw off the aesthetic, as the kids called it.

She laughed, damn her. "I love the ancient things. I can't help myself."

She isn't even surprised about the telepathy either.

What was wrong with trainers these days?


End file.
